Orc stun move

[MobyPhallus]

The orc charge/stun move seems way too OP... they can stun my entire frontline on the first or second turn, even if they are all shieldwalled.
I know you can combat this by reaching them first, but when you are in a battle against 14+ orcs you are pretty much screwed. This is why I I never choose the orc invasion endgame, its just way too brutal.

What are good strategies against orcs?

[UnluckyNoob]

1. Spearwall.
2. You may move couple shield brothers forward, so your other brothers will not be stunned.
3. In late game I use 2h axe bro with orc trophy. That's 2 round swings and 4-5 dead young orcs in single turn.

[Krasher]

Originally posted by UnluckyNoob:

1. Spearwall.
2. You may move couple shield brothers forward, so your other brothers will not be stunned.
3. In late game I use 2h axe bro with orc trophy. That's 2 round swings and 4-5 dead young orcs in single turn.

Spearwall is a very good idea, and you put a few shieldbros forward to distract a small group of orcs, also great idea. The shieldguys make sure your team doesn't get flanked and gives time to teammates.Orcs have pretty bad armor so you'll be doing damage fairly quickly, especially with some snipers or billmen supporting the spearwall. Flails can help against the orcs who carry a shield, a few cheap dogs can also help you sometimes. If you hold the cursor over the attack icon while you're in the inventory/garrison menu, it will show you the specific traits weapons have, this is a good idea to understand where a weapons strengths are and where they are weak.

[BilliBobBillsen]

Young orcs arent to so difiicult. If u have a company that can dish out and take good amounts of dmg, its wise to go in first. Just like you described.
Another thing that helps against lots of young orcs is good ol' corssbows. They hit reliably and relatively hard. So injuries are very common. U dont need to kill them just injure them all.
Also Young orcs hat ♥♥♥♥♥ to no armor = either kill the shields really fast with some axebros and then go for the kill with a machete or do the flail like "my name is john" stated above me.
Also young orcs run out off stamina realitvely quick. If u have some pikemen, just do the old pusheroo style.

With Berserkers you can do it the same.

Orc warriors are a different breed however. They can screw you over, if u dont have the right talentbuild and weapons. They are nasty if they appear groups of 2-3 in a squad of young orcs, but later when they go in bigger groups, you should acount for some loses.
As far as I know u cant push or stun them. They hit super hard and are super heavyly armored.
Thy can push you away + the usual rhinocharge that all orcs have.
I havent found a wondercure for them. Here is what I tried so far:

Building up counter heavies. Mostly super heavyly armored dudes with big f....ing hammers.
OR
Dodgy dudes with daggers that can bypass armor.

The dodgy dudes are faster in taking down the orc warri but if they get hit, well .... splat.

The armor dudes mostly survive the encounter but the rep costs of fighting the orc warriors are insane.

If you guys have found a way to deal with orc warris. I could need some help.

[Bam Bam]

Got about 700 hours on this all of it on Ironman. For Orc Warriors what you want are hammers. Then more hammers. If the hammering isn't working you didnt bring enough hammers. Eventually you can field bros with the stats to safely wield two-handed swords which is like a sharper hammer.

Orc Young are nearly the easist enemy type in the game, for reals. They will always stun your frontline for a bit but with armor/shields you'll be fine. They squishy and stupid and just about any strat works on them, I prefer bills/bows in the back and swords/cleavers up front. I don't find spearwalls to be the most effective way of doing things.

A few more tips:

Be careful when breaking orc shields. Orc Young shields break easily but keep turn order in mind as you greatly enlarge their damage potential. Orcs in melee will almost always spend half AP shieldwalling and the other half striking. With no shield they use that nasty cleaver twice with 25% bonus two-hand damage. With some bad RNG you can imagine the rest. Same applies to human enemies sometimes.

Have bows (not crossbows) in every fight against Berserkers. Switch your ranged units to billhooks when only Orc Warriors are left. Even crossbows are a waste of stamina against Warrior armor.

Nets are awesome.

[The Duck Knight]

as always; the answer is NETS.
Wait for them, net them. engange.

Also: spears

[Abel]

I've observed that recruits with high Resolve seem to resist the stun more. Or is it simply a % chance?

Good advice from everyone there. For Orc Youngs, you can brute force your way and use Greatswords to slay them. The Spearwall works to a degree but Orcs are quite clever and can wait out or make good use of Shieldwall (not always).
Berserkers will try and flank but I would not risk engaging them in melee unless I had Dogs or the ability to reliably stun.
Archers do wonders against both so be sure to bring a good amount of them.

Orc Warriors are different altogether but Dogs and Nets will make them less dangerous. Then, it's just a matter of time before they either flee or die. Maces also are very good against them with high armor damage and a penalty to Fatigue on each hit (and they quickly exhaust themselves with their weapons).

[flameDjinn]

Spearwall works super cool vs orcs (not orc warriors), undead (not ancient dead), nachezars and wolfs. Just put your 2h sword in backpack and use doublegrip spearwall. You don't need spears on all guys, just give spears to half of them. Also orcs, zombies, fallen heroes does not have great defense, so your lvl 11 brothers with spears will have around 95% chance to hit them. You need only a few rounds until your archers shoot down all orcs.

It does not work well vs warriors just because archers are not good vs them.

Actually i use 2h bros with bags & belts + quick hands. They have 2h sword, shield, 2h hammer, long axe in backpack and spear in hand. So i can hit orcs with long axe or push back them with shield if they broke spearwall. But i think it will work even without it.

[Galla]

Spearwall is pretty good. Only problem is that spears are pretty useless against orcs if they bring that heavy armour they're fond of. Young orcs are okay, but if you bring enough spears for a proper spearwall, then you won't have enough killing power to deal with orc warriors. I'm still not sure how to properly deal with orcs

[Krasher]

Originally posted by Agurzil27:

Spearwall is pretty good. Only problem is that spears are pretty useless against orcs if they bring that heavy armour they're fond of. Young orcs are okay, but if you bring enough spears for a proper spearwall, then you won't have enough killing power to deal with orc warriors. I'm still not sure how to properly deal with orcs

Originally posted by Tits McGee:

Got about 700 hours on this all of it on Ironman. For Orc Warriors what you want are hammers. Then more hammers. If the hammering isn't working you didnt bring enough hammers. Eventually you can field bros with the stats to safely wield two-handed swords which is like a sharper hammer.

Orc Young are nearly the easist enemy type in the game, for reals. They will always stun your frontline for a bit but with armor/shields you'll be fine. They squishy and stupid and just about any strat works on them, I prefer bills/bows in the back and swords/cleavers up front. I don't find spearwalls to be the most effective way of doing things.

A few more tips:

Be careful when breaking orc shields. Orc Young shields break easily but keep turn order in mind as you greatly enlarge their damage potential. Orcs in melee will almost always spend half AP shieldwalling and the other half striking. With no shield they use that nasty cleaver twice with 25% bonus two-hand damage. With some bad RNG you can imagine the rest. Same applies to human enemies sometimes.

Have bows (not crossbows) in every fight against Berserkers. Switch your ranged units to billhooks when only Orc Warriors are left. Even crossbows are a waste of stamina against Warrior armor.

Nets are awesome.

There is plenty of info here on fighting orcs, heavily armored or otherwise.

[flameDjinn]

Originally posted by Agurzil27:

Spearwall is pretty good. Only problem is that spears are pretty useless against orcs if they bring that heavy armour they're fond of. Young orcs are okay, but if you bring enough spears for a proper spearwall, then you won't have enough killing power to deal with orc warriors. I'm still not sure how to properly deal with orcs

As i say just put your main weapon - 2h sword or 1h + shield in backpack and equip spear. Your archers just need a few rounds to kill all youngs and berserkers, then put spear in backpack and equip main weapon to deal with heavy armored orcs. You need only recovery perk, because spearwall are fatiguing

[NM9G]

One thing I've failed to see someone mention is the use of the indomitable perk. Paired with heavy armour and battleforged it not only reduces strikes to do little to no damage, but as well makes the user immune to stun. In my build, I pop the perk the turn before their charge and I always get the wreak havok the next turn as they made themselves vulnerable to a strike from a two hander. I am working on a guide to justify the use of indomitable, as it is generally glossed over due to its fatigue cost.
Otherwise, spears are an okay alternative, but they lack late game damage, and even with great melee skill they seem to fail against shields.

[Krasher]

Originally posted by NM9G:

One thing I've failed to see someone mention is the use of the indomitable perk. Paired with heavy armour and battleforged it not only reduces strikes to do little to no damage, but as well makes the user immune to stun. In my build, I pop the perk the turn before their charge and I always get the wreak havok the next turn as they made themselves vulnerable to a strike from a two hander. I am working on a guide to justify the use of indomitable, as it is generally glossed over due to its fatigue cost.
Otherwise, spears are an okay alternative, but they lack late game damage, and even with great melee skill they seem to fail against shields.

If you're at that point where your guys have brawny, heavy armor, battleforged etc. young orcs aren't really an issue anymore, i see how indomitable could work with orc warriors and beserkers but what are the fatigue stats? Is it good to use every round so orc warriors don't destroy your formation?

[NM9G]

Originally posted by my name is john:

Originally posted by NM9G:

One thing I've failed to see someone mention is the use of the indomitable perk. Paired with heavy armour and battleforged it not only reduces strikes to do little to no damage, but as well makes the user immune to stun. In my build, I pop the perk the turn before their charge and I always get the wreak havok the next turn as they made themselves vulnerable to a strike from a two hander. I am working on a guide to justify the use of indomitable, as it is generally glossed over due to its fatigue cost.
Otherwise, spears are an okay alternative, but they lack late game damage, and even with great melee skill they seem to fail against shields.

If you're at that point where your guys have brawny, heavy armor, battleforged etc. young orcs aren't really an issue anymore, i see how indomitable could work with orc warriors and beserkers but what are the fatigue stats? Is it good to use every round so orc warriors don't destroy your formation?

Fatigue is a big factor on determining how much armour your character can carry. Ideally you want a lot to spare but with 300/300 armour you will on average be at barely 70 fatigue at lvl 11, but of course if you hire a wildman you will have a higher base to start with. Recover synergizes with berzerk and indomitable in refunding you as for a kill and is key to readying up your bro for some more rounds of multi target burst damage. In terms of using indomitable every turn isn't too likely, but can be done. Indomitable should be used primarily to mitigate damage and you will over time recognize enemy ai patterns and attacks that will hurt. I personally wouldn't engage orcs until at least battleforged and 400 armour value. Additionally, giving your pikemen the same indomitable battleforged recover combo is essential and besides from protecting your archers, you shouldn't really worry about warrior pushes. I've got to get back to class, so my explanation might be a bit rushed, but yeah it is a bit complex, but worth it :)

[Abel]

There was an interesting fellow here, Leisurjka he was named I believe. He had built a whole strategy and team around Indomitable. I never really understood how he made it work (I've never been appealed by Indomitable myself) but with Recover, medium Armor, high Fatigue and a selection of Perks he would manage to alternate between high Melee Defense and damage reduction. The fights would last forever but the idea was to counter randomness completely.

[NM9G]

Originally posted by Abel:

There was an interesting fellow here, Leisurjka he was named I believe. He had built a whole strategy and team around Indomitable. I never really understood how he made it work (I've never been appealed by Indomitable myself) but with Recover, medium Armor, high Fatigue and a selection of Perks he would manage to alternate between high Melee Defense and damage reduction. The fights would last forever but the idea was to counter randomness completely.

Yeah there were discussions about indomitable in the past, and genereally the perk was dissmissed due to high fatigue costs. I have had the proper way to use indomitable introduced to me from a Twitch streamer named Malros, who used it on a character with laughably low ranged defense, in order to absorb the initial arrow shots made by all ranged units. And I will say it really does make sense to cheese the AI into shooting your most "vulnerable" target, but then turning that around and negating the strongest of shots taken to about 10 damage.
I personally have adopted this concept build and formed my own version. I currently do not have my work published in the form of a guide... yet, but I have been in the works of making it happen as it is important to understand the playstyle that comes with the build.

But yeah anyways, indomitable is highly overlooked, but it saves lives, armour, allows for the taking on of stronger opponents, and is definitely one of the ways to avoid the seemingly very accurate orc charge stuns.
Also yes I do believe, in full that since it counters all types of damage it would indeed counter ballance out your odds in a fight.